Marco Klein

Manager, HR Services, TRUMPF

Supernova Award Category: 

Future of Work: Human Capital Management

The Organization: 

TRUMPF GmbH & Co. KG (going forward, “TRUMPF”) is a leading international supplier of machine tools and lasers for industrial manufacturing. The mission of the family-owned company is to advance production technology, making manufacturing more efficient and enabling the “smart factory.” TRUMPF was founded in 1923 by Christian Trumpf and two partners with the acquisition of a machine shop in Stuttgart, Germany. Today, TRUMPF is one of the largest providers of machine tools, doing business with more than 70 subsidiaries and manufacturing in 14 countries, with more than 14,400 employees and €3.8 billion in revenue.

The Problem: 

When TRUMPF replaced an existing human capital management (HCM) system with a global rollout of Workday, company leadership anticipated that a related rise in employees’ support requests would accompany the implementation of the new product. This led TRUMPF to conclude it needed modern case management.

More importantly, TRUMPF was also looking at moving its human resources (HR) operating model to the 21st century. The guiding principle was to establish HR as a resource as competent and as trusted as a reliable primary physician.

The existing tooling for its HR generalists, who service TRUMPF employees, was fragmented and didn’t offer much automation. There was little knowledge management, and TRUMPF was certain the current solution would not be adequate for the rollout and support of a global HCM solution.

After a thorough request-for-proposals process, TRUMPF selected PeopleDoc, now part of Ultimate Software.

The Solution: 

After selecting PeopleDoc, TRUMPF embarked in the implementation processes of the product in spring 2018. TRUMPF found itself well supported in the process and piloted the new HR case management system that fall with a soft launch, solely for use inside of the HR department. That approach was very successful and achieved two key benefits. First, the future expert users of the new HR case management system had a chance to get familiar and comfortable with the new PeopleDoc platform. Second, the HR department could both test the quality of its existing knowledge base and build up the knowledge base for the upcoming go-live date. This combination proved vitally successful for the overall success of PeopleDoc at TRUMPF, as shown by the successful go-live. At the beginning of the implementation, Ultimate Software acquired PeopleDoc. Both vendors had a proactive effort to inform TRUMPF’s management about the acquisitions and reassured them that nothing substantial would change.

The Results: 

Although PeopleDoc has been live only a little longer than half a year at TRUMPF, the company already has seen a number of benefits. These affirm to managers the value of their platform selection as well as notable efficiency gains for both employees and HR help-desk operators.

  • Self-service resolution up substantially. TRUMPF measures with the precision of an engineering company how well PeopleDoc helps its employees get fast resolution of their HR service requests. The desired outcome is that through self-service, employees can directly find the solutions to their questions and issues themselves.
  • HR help-desk productivity raised. Productivity has been boosted, not only because of higher self-service resolution by employees (which obviously results in lower direct call loads for the HR help desk) but also through the use of PeopleDoc’s knowledge base.
  • A true empowerment for HR. Remarkably, TRUMPF was able to perform all necessary tasks to keep its PeopleDoc solution running since the go-live date. No additional costs were incurred for outside help; no involvement of IT was required, either.
  • Knowledge base optimization becomes reality. As with many help desks, HR help desks can get quickly inundated by service requests. That is not so for TRUMPF, which, thanks to PeopleDoc, has created more depth and width to its knowledge base thanks to the time savings created by self-service resolution.
Metrics: 
  • Higher self-service closure rates for employees
  • Higher efficiency of HR help desk
  • Successfully establishment of a new HR operating model
The Technology: 
  • PeopleDoc Employee Case Management
  • Cloud-based platform (Amazon Web Services)
Disruptive Factor: 
  • Self Service resolution up substantially, Trumpf can accelerate its business
  • HR Helpdesk productivity up, case closure time is down
  • Empowering HR – HR became more productive and can now focus on more strategic tasks
  • Trumpf finally has a tool to manage and optimize its knowledge base in HR
Shining Moment: 

“The PeopleDoc by Ultimate Software solution has helped Trumpf substantially to improve employee experience—both for our employees and our HR team members.” —Marco Klein, Manager, HR Services

About TRUMPF

The TRUMPF Group is a German industrial machine manufacturing company. It is a family-owned company with its head office in Ditzingen near Stuttgart. TRUMPF is one of the world's biggest providers of machine tools.